Energy demands are growing, particularly in urban areas. In addition, demand levels fluctuate throughout the day, with peak demand periods placing considerable demands on utility companies and the power supply grid. Adding to the challenge of meeting increasing demand, environmental considerations have increased the use of alternative energy sources, to power the grid. For example, wind turbines and solar photo-voltaic (PV) panels are becoming more popular as alternative power services. While these alternative energy sources provide additional electrical power sources and further provide environmental benefits, they are also subject to environmental or weather events. For example, weather events, such as cloud cover occluding solar energy, or severe wind conditions or lack of wind conditions, may cause alternative energy sources such as these to temporarily and periodically negatively affect the ability of these sources to generate power.
To address these time-varying power supply levels in concert with varying demand, solutions must be developed to provide a stable power supply. One solution includes the use of grid-scale batteries to serve as a reserve power source. Batteries store energy and may provide electrical power when either power demand increases, for example in a commercial building, or if power sources supplying the power grid are negatively affected by factors such as various weather related events. However, until now, battery systems have not been integrated with Building Automation Systems (BAS) and Building Management Systems (BMS), preventing the ability to optimize these solutions for sustainability and stability.
Forecasting demand response (DR) may provide some ability to manage demand through load shifting. But current solutions only provide short-term forecasts of one or two days. These solutions cannot exploit tariff schedules provided by utility companies that span timelines of about one month or more.
Improved solutions are desired to address these disadvantages.